Safe operation of a vehicle requires a clear, unimpaired view out of the vehicle. Bright rays of sunshine encountered on the road can distract drivers, even potentially temporarily blinding them. Poor visibility caused by sunshine can lead to loss of control of the vehicle, impact and subsequent damage to the vehicle and injury or death of drivers, passengers, or onlookers. Sunshine faced while occupying a vehicle can cause pain or irritation to the eyes of occupants of a vehicle, or potential long-term damage to eyesight.
Traditional visors in the prior art (DE102005025089A1, DE 3436760C1) are rectangular devices that are installed in vehicles, usually during the process of manufacturing the vehicle. Such visors block the sunshine encountered on a roadway from directly striking the eyes of occupants of the vehicle. Typical traditional visors swing down from the ceiling of the vehicle and occupy the top portion of a person's field of view. Such devices are generally opaque. In typical cases, they cover an area at the top of the windshield in a rectangle that is about a foot wide by 6 inches tall.
A major problem associated with opaque visors known in the prior art is that they obstruct the view of the occupants of a vehicle, and most critically, the driver of a vehicle. When an opaque visor is deployed, the user of said opaque visor's field of view is reduced by the area covered by the visor, and his or her capacity to see and respond to obstacles or hazards outside of the vehicle is necessarily reduced. Users can “peek” around the visor to observe said obstacles or hazards, but if the user by chance looks directly at the sun, “peeking” may lead to momentary flash blindness caused by bright sunshine. The problem of the hazards associated with peeking is exacerbated by the opaque visors known in the prior art, as the user of such devices do not know where the sun may enter into their line of sight from behind the visor. As such, such a user may peek around an opaque visor only to suddenly and unintentionally look directly into the sun. The flash blindness caused by such an action could prove catastrophic for the operator of a vehicle. As a result of such flash blindness, a vehicle operator could wreck the vehicle, damage exterior objects, or worse potentially cause injury or death to individuals either outside of the vehicle or occupants of the vehicle.
Flash blindness and/or a bright sun are also problematic for general driving. Sun glare—the very bright shine associated with the sun during certain times of the day, weather conditions, climates, and/or seasons—can have adverse effects on the driver. There are numerous reports of traffic accidents solely or partly attributed to glare associated with the sun and related light reflected from various reflective surfaces. Obvious consequences of traffic accidents on the persons affected by said accident include injury or death, economic loss associated with said injury, death, or on vehicles and property, and emotional and psychological trauma that may or may not be quantified. In addition to the effect on persons, there are numerous economic impacts. Traffic due to the sun glare, or associated with accidents due to sun glare can have substantial impact on the economy. Traffic can increase commute time, increase air pollution, and decrease productivity. Finally, dealing with sun glare may cause fatigue in individuals in a vehicle, especially the driver, during exposure to the sun light and/or associated traffic.
The scope of sunshine protection offered by prior art visors is limited in a number of ways. Sunshine reflected off the ground or other vehicles, enter the vehicle operator's line of sight from below the viewable area protected by a traditional visor. Thus, such reflected light can easily cause distractions to vehicle occupants as does direct rays of light from the sun. Prior art visors can also be problematic for some people of certain sizes and for some configurations of internal vehicular seating in relation to a windshield. For instance, many current visors block direct or reflected sunshine for users of average or above average stature. However, in some cases, prior art visors may not be effective for users of below average stature, due to the location and angle of the sunshine relative to their eye level, for example, when the sun is near the horizon. Many devices have been developed in attempts to overcome this problem. Prior art visor add-ons attach to opaque visors and act as a mechanism to extend the scope of area protected by the visors. Some of these auxiliary visor attachments are made of a tinted material, some are made of a polarized material, and still others are opaque, or incorporate patterns or shapes designed to deflect sunshine. Prior art visors may also not be ideal for users of above average stature, as current opaque visors may obstruct and reduce visibility of the road for said users of above average stature.
Moreover, prior art visors may work well only for certain configurations of vehicular seating in relation to a windshield. If a seat is too far away from or too close to a windshield, the angle of the sunshine entering into a car, whether direct or reflected, prevents many traditional prior art visors from offering adequate sunshine protection in such instances. In such cases, sunshine can enter into the line of sight of a vehicle occupant by traveling around a fully deployed prior art visor.
In addition, prior art devices, such as auxiliary visor attachments, can be used with traditional visors. Such devices, however, have their own disadvantages. Prior art devices often may only be used with the traditional visor only in the lowered or partially lowered positions. Even when prior art devices can be used independently of the position of traditional visors, they suffer the same issue of the inability to track the sun's movement. Moreover, while many such prior art devices attempt to solve the problem of visibility by incorporating a tint, the tint is inadequate. A primary problem associated with many tint-incorporating transparent or semi-transparent visors known in the prior art is that the tint utilized by such visors does not adequately reduce intensity of sunlight. As such, if a driver intentionally or unintentionally looks through a prior art visor incorporating such low tint levels directly into the sun, the driver would experience flash blindness causing the risk of harm or death to either the driver, occupants of the vehicle, or individuals outside of the vehicle.